WANDisco dances on the spot as booking volatility persists

LONDON (ShareCast) - Big data software company Wandisco (LSE: WAND.L - news) said volatility in bookings continued but that revenues had risen 20% in the first quarter. The roll-out of deferred revenue from prior period sales bookings helped smooth out lumpy contract wins, meaning $3m of sales was higher than the $2.5m in the same period last year.

Four Big Data contract wins in the quarter brought sales bookings of $0.4m, with price comparison website comparethemarket.com a first ever customer of the new Fusion product.

Fusion, which is its first product to provide access to data across all its Hadoop-compatible data storage providers, has provided the sales pipeline "some early stage but promisingly progressing opportunities".

The application lifecycle management (ALM) team booked $1.6m from contracts in the quarter, after a new dedicated sales team only recently established under new leadership.

This was less than half the amount booked in the same period last year, reflecting management's statement that the group continued to expect volatility in quarterly bookings as sales pipeline builds and is converted.

Chief executive David Richards said: "In ALM, our transition to a dedicated sales model under new leadership has, as expected, impacted sales in the quarter. We continue to move ALM towards profitability.

"Our new Big Data customer comparethemarket.com shows that we have capabilities that Hadoop distributors cannot provide." Broker FinnCap said its forecasts are unchanged and ongoing growth in bookings was the key to share price performance; "we look forward to further contract wins announcements".